Lone Survivor is being advertised as one of the best war movies since Saving Private Ryan. I think that's overselling it a bit, but it is good. Wahlberg is pretty adept at picking decent films, and this one is no exception. It is the true story of Operation Rec Wings, where SEAL Team 10 was sent on a mission to capture/kill Ahmad Shahd, a notorious Taliban commander who killed several US servicemen as well as several Afghan civilians he thought we collaborating with the Americans. All but one of the team was killed when they were discovered, as the title suggests.
SPOILER ALERT! If you don't want to know what happens, don't read the following paragraph. Sorry about the spoilers, but I have to give them to talk about the aspect of the movie that I find interesting. The movie opens with shots of SEAL BUD/S training and then propels us into Afghanistan cerca 2005 at Bagram Aitfield. Our group of guys are introduced and quickly get a mission to kill a notorious Taliban commander in an operation code-named Red Wings. Four of them are flown out into a remote area in Kunar Province and they quickly discover that this commander is surrounded by several hundred fighters. The SEALs abort the mission, but run into an old man and two boys who are goat herders. They detain them and briefly argue about whether to kill them or not to avoid being compromised. The SEALs let them go, and quickly find themselves in a horrific firefight. All but Wahlberg are killed within the first day (not the spoiler, it's in the title). The second day, Wahlberg runs into another afghan who takes him to his village and gets word to the nearest American base that Wahlberg is in the village. The Taliban find him later in the day and are about to behead him until the afghan stops them and tells them Wahlberg is his guest. The Taliban commander threatens and then later comes back to kill everyone in the village. The village fights back, and then the Americans show up and take Wahlberg back to safety.
What the movie was showcasing besides the bond of these soldiers, was the 2000-year-old Afghan code of Pashtunwali, which obligates an Afghan to protect a guest in his house no matter the consequences, among other things. It also makes a very important point that is lost in many war movies like this that many, if not most Afghans, are not the Taliban, and in fact, hate the Taliban, but they are stuck in the middle of a conflict that was not their making. This code of conduct helps makes sense of a brutal world, as many traditions do. It is refreshing to see a war movie that does not totally demonize the other side through gross stereotypes. However, while the movie rightly lauds Pashtunwali, it conveniently forgets that this code is indirectly responsible for bringing the U.S. there in the first place. The Taliban originally invoked the same code to defend al-Qaida when they sheltered bin Laden, Zawahiri, and senior al-Qaida fighters and leaders after 9/11. Tradition can sometimes work both ways, but what is important to note is that Afghans take Pashtunwali very seriously and are fiercely honest in their application of it. The other curious omission was any information about posthumous Medal of Honor recipient Lt. Michael Murphy who died in this mission. At the end of the movie, pictures of the real members of Operation Red Wings are shown. It mentions their names and ranks, but nothing else. Lt. Murphy was the first Medal of Honor recipient in Afghanistan, as well as the first naval recipient since Vietnam. I am not criticizing, but it is a very notable oversight. My only other real complaint is that while the movie is good, it doesn't really have a lot of depth like Saving Private Ryan or Platoon has. The movie is essentially one long action film. It is exciting and tense, but in the end, is not overly thought-provoking as other, more superior war movies have been. It is pretty violent, but not exceedingly so, but my tolerance for that is pretty high, so many may disagree with me on that. All in all, it was good, but not great, but is worth seeing.
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